Wordsworth's philosophic song PDF
Preview Wordsworth's philosophic song
This page intentionally left blank WORDSWORTH’S PHILOSOPHIC SONG Wordsworth wrote that he longed to compose ‘some philosophic Song / Of Truth that cherishes our daily life.’ Yet he never finished The Recluse, his long philosophical poem. Simon Jarvis argues that Wordsworth’s aspiration to ‘philosophicsong’iscentraltohisgreatness,andchangedthewayEnglishpoetry was written. Some critics see Wordsworth as a systematic thinker, while for others,heisapoetfirst,andathinkeronly(ifatall)second.Jarvisshowsinstead how essential both philosophy and the ‘song’ of poetry were to Wordsworth’s achievement. Drawing on advanced work in continental philosophy and social theory to address the ideological attacks which have dominated much recent commentary,Jarvisreads Wordsworth’swritingbothcritically andphilosophic- ally,toshowhowWordsworththinksthroughandinverse.Thisstudyrethinks the relation between poetry and society itself by analysing the tensions between thinking philosophically and writing poetry. simon jarvis is Gorley Putt Reader in Poetry and Poetics at the University ofCambridge.HeistheauthorofScholarsandGentlemen:ShakespearianTextual CriticismandRepresentationsofScholarlyLabour,1725–1765(1995)andAdorno:A Critical Introduction (1998). CAMBRIDGE STUDIES IN ROMANTICISM General Editors Professor Marilyn Butler, University of Oxford Professor James Chandler, University of Chicago Editorial Board John Barrell, University of York Paul Hamilton, University of London Mary Jacobus, University of Cambridge Claudia Johnson, Princeton University Alan Liu, University of California, Santa Barbara Susan Manning, University of Edinburgh Jerome McGann, University of Virginia David Simpson, University of California, Davis Thisseriesaimstofosterthebestnewworkinoneofthemostchallengingfields within English literary studies. From the early 1780s to the early 1830s a formidable array of talented men and women took to literary composition, not justinpoetry,whichsomeofthemfamouslytransformed,butinmanymodesof writing.Theexpansionofpublishingcreatednewopportunitiesforwriters,and the political stakes of what they wrote were raised again by what Wordsworth called those ‘great national events’ that were ‘almost daily taking place’: the French Revolution, the Napoleonic and American wars, urbanization, industrialization, religious revival, an expanded empire abroad and the reform movement at home. This was an enormous ambition, even when it pretended otherwise. The relations between science, philosophy, religion, and literature were reworked in texts such as Frankenstein and Biographia Literaria; gender relations in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman and Don Juan; journalism by CobbettandHazlitt;poeticform,contentandstylebytheLakeSchoolandthe Cockney School. Outside Shakespeare studies, probably no body of writing has produced such a wealth of response or done so much to shape the responses of modern criticism. This indeed is the period that saw the emergence of those notions of ‘literature’ and of literary history, especially national literary history, on which modern scholarship in English has been founded. ThecategoriesproducedbyRomanticismhavealsobeenchallengedbyrecent historicistarguments.Thetaskoftheseriesistoengagebothwithachallenging corpus of Romantic writings and with the changing field of criticism they have helped to shape. As with other literary series published by Cambridge, this one willrepresenttheworkofbothyoungerandmoreestablishedscholars,oneither side of the Atlantic and elsewhere. For a complete list of titles published see end of book. WORDSWORTH’S PHILOSOPHIC SONG SIMON JARVIS CAMBRIDGEUNIVERSITYPRESS Cambridge,NewYork,Melbourne,Madrid,CapeTown,Singapore,SãoPaulo Cambridge University Press TheEdinburghBuilding,CambridgeCB28RU,UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Informationon this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521862684 ©SimonJarvis2007 Thispublicationisincopyright.Subjecttostatutoryexceptionandtotheprovisionof relevantcollectivelicensingagreements,noreproductionofanypartmaytakeplace withoutthewrittenpermissionofCambridgeUniversityPress. Firstpublishedinprintformat 2006 ISBN-13 978-0-511-26894-6 eBook(EBL) ISBN-10 0-511-26894-7 eBook(EBL) ISBN-13 978-0-521-86268-4 hardback ISBN-10 0-521-86268-X hardback CambridgeUniversityPresshasnoresponsibilityforthepersistenceoraccuracyofurls forexternalorthird-partyinternetwebsitesreferredtointhispublication,anddoesnot guaranteethatanycontentonsuchwebsitesis,orwillremain,accurateorappropriate. It is the possible, never the immediately actual, that blocks off utopia. Contents Acknowledgements viii List of abbreviations ix Introduction: poetic thinking 1 COUNTER-SPIRITS 33 1 Old idolatry 35 2 From idolatry to ideology 56 3 Materialism of the beautiful 84 109 COMMON DAY 4 Happiness 111 5 Infinity 133 6 Life 153 7 Light 195 Conclusion: imagination 214 Notes 224 Bibliography 252 Index 263 vii Acknowledgements For help, advice, information and inspiration of various kinds over a number of years I thank the following: Ruth Abbott, Jay Bernstein, Phillip Blond, the British Academy, Marilyn Butler, Fenella Cannell, Cathy Caruth, Howard Caygill, Jim Chandler, Stefan Collini, Peter De Bolla,HaydnDowney,ElizabethEdwards,HowardErskine-Hill,Frances Ferguson, Yoram Gorlizki, Sarah Haggarty, Wayne Hankey, Neil Hertz, Neil Hitchen, Roger Howard, Mary Jacobus, Gillian Jarvis, Michael Jarvis,TimJarvis,JohnKerrigan,DominickLaCapra,NigelLeask,Nigel Mapp, Charles Martindale, John Milbank, Drew Milne, Reeve Parker, Ian Patterson, Roland Polastro, J.H. Prynne, John and Gayle Richards, the late Gillian Rose, the Warden and Fellows of Robinson College, Cambridge, Michael Rossington, Jim Siegel, James Simpson, the Society for the Humanities at Cornell University, Keston Sutherland, Peter Swaab, Gordon Teskey, Nick Walker, Nigel Wheale, and Ross Wilson. Mark Offord’s extensive comments on the whole manuscript were of the highest value. The book is dedicated to Tim Jarvis. viii
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